


You Met Me When the Sun Was Down

by thegrumblingirl



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drift magic, M/M, Song fic, my darling scientists, you didn't think I wasn't gonna fall for them did you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drifting with a Kaiju was the most amazing, wonderful, <em>feckless</em> thing Newt had ever done. And just when Newt thought the day couldn’t get <em>more</em> awesome he encountered something else that was unlike the Jaeger pilots experienced, something else he’d only ever dared hope he’d be privy to.<br/>Hermann’s mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Met Me When the Sun Was Down

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by the weather: [Closer by The Tiny](http://screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse.tumblr.com/post/56253203763/ciaomunch-care-to-comment-on-the-recent). I couldn't not do this, because I watched the movie and fell in love with them instantly.
> 
> A short note: this was written before I knew that Hermann is actually canonically married to Vanessa. Damn, now I wanna write an OT3.

Drifting with a Kaiju was the most amazing, wonderful, _feckless_ thing Newt had ever done. He’d never seen a mind like that, such a complex, vivid stream of thoughts and concepts and feelings, tendrils of them curling around his synapses that were firing at full capacity — rewiring, _changing_. A Drift with a collective alien hive mind and the creature itself, undertaken with equipment salvaged and scavenged and mostly made up of parts that the other departments had long decommissioned, was unlike anything the Jaeger pilots experienced.

And just when Newt thought the day couldn’t get _more_ awesome he encountered something else that was unlike the Jaeger pilots experienced, something else he’d only ever dared hope he’d be privy to.

Hermann’s mind.

_Now I'm thinking, maybe I was stoned_  
 _I felt my feet lift off the ground_  
 _And my heart was screaming_  
 _And my bones_  
 _‘I need you closer’_

“You would... you would do that for me?” he’d blurted before he could catch himself, his mind flashing back to when he’d come to on the floor of the lab, disoriented and surprised at the arms wrapped tightly around him, his own hand instinctively gripping the fabric of Hermann’s jacket to anchor himself to their reality.

When Newt had been in the Drift with the Kaiju, he had felt like something was missing — he’d known he wasn’t supposed to do this alone, that it was dangerous to carry the neural load by himself (d’uh), and that Stacker would rip him a new one if this went sideways, but it wasn’t just that. Hermann had dismissed his idea with a rap of his cane against the metal floor of the lab and a jab thrown over his shoulder, and that had _stung_ , more than Newt had thought it would. And so, being in the Drift on his own (and the collective consciousness of an entire alien race, but a tiny part of him had still felt alone, because he was) had felt awesome and overwhelming and incandescent, but also like a really, really bad trip.

Not that he had much experience with drugs, apart from the few times he’d smoked pot in college and that one puzzling day he’d taken acid for the sake of an experiment — people might think that, with his tattoos and his ‘I’m a scientist, I’m a rockstar!’ attitude, he was a wild child, but he really wasn’t so unlike Hermann in terms of avoiding the abuse of illegal substances; he was just a teensy bit crazier. And, by the looks of it, definitely crazier about Hermann than Hermann was about him. But he’d sort of known that for as long as they’d known each other.

That moment, however, in between dead Kaiju guts and a rapidly dying baby Kaiju brain, flipped cars and rubble, thinking of opening his eyes to Hermann’s cheek pressed against his hair, he allowed himself to believe that Hermann maybe, maybe, didn’t hate him just that much.

_As he’s in the middle of the street_  
 _Then I pretend he is mine to keep_  
 _Cars are running fast on both sides_  
 _of his head, his eyes say_  
 _‘Closer, closer, closer’_

Not many people knew just how well they knew each other, really. To the Jaeger pilots and most of the crews they’d worked with, they were just the two eternally bickering geniuses, at odds about everything from research proposals to working hypotheses, egos clashing and leaving destruction in their wake, chalk dust on one desk and Kaiju intestines on the other.

“Kaiju groupie,” Hermann had snarled after they’d introduced themselves to Raleigh, and the vitriol in his voice was as familiar to Newt as the patterns of his footfall (as well as the changes in those patterns when he was tired or angry or weary, or all those together), and it was the result of the same arguments over and over for more than ten years.

Funnily enough, they hadn’t even met in a lab.

_I met him when the sun was down_  
 _The bar was closed_  
 _We both have had no sleep_  
 _My face beneath the street lamp_  
 _it reveals what it is lonely people seek_  
 _‘Closer, closer,_  
 _‘Closer, closer’_

They’d bumped into each other, literally, on the campus of MIT. Well, Newt had done most of the bumping because he possessed all the grace of a tree trunk, and because he’d been mostly drunk and not paying attention to where he was going when he rounded the corner of the street leading to the dorms. He’d crashed into Hermann like a bag of bricks, sending the man into a frenzy of waving one arm like a windmill and trying to steady his cane and thus his bad leg with the other; and he’d have gone sprawling to the ground if Newt hadn’t uncharacteristically managed to grab him by the shoulders and keep him upright just in time. Newt had always thought he deserved some bonus points for that — Hermann obviously disagreed.

He’d spat at him to let go of him, “bumbling fool,” and to get his sorry arse out of the way and into his dorm and to “sleep it _off_ , for God’s sake,” and Newt had been left to stare after the man as he angrily stalked away on his three legs.

“My name’s Newt!” he’d called after him, but had received only a curt wave of the other’s hand over his shoulder, and to this day Newt wasn’t sure if Hermann hadn’t simply flipped him the bird, but he’d broken another pair of glasses that day and his night-dimly-illuminated-by-streetlamps vision clearly wasn’t the best.

They’d been formally introduced two weeks later, incidentally, and since then had seen far more of each other than they’d ever thought possible or, quite frankly, necessary ever since the establishment of the K-Science department. It had been obvious to just about everyone they’d ever worked with that, if anyone could get behind the science of the Breach, it was the two of them. It had also been obvious to just about everyone that that heavily depended on them not killing each other before they got that far.

The joke was on them, though — if anyone was murdering someone, it was Hermann. Newt had long since decided that, if he ever ended up knocking Hermann out cold with an Erlenmeyer flask, it’d be self-defence. He’d realised what he knew Hermann would never admit to anyone, least of all himself: they needed this. They needed their arguments, their bickering, their constant friction; needed it to remain stable, sane, needed to shout at each other to release the pent-up energy that came with bustling about in a lab while others were out there in the ocean or the port cities, risking their lives piloting heavy machinery and smashing Kaiju skulls in. The world was ending soon, and as the funding depleted and the lab spaces became smaller, the arguments and tempers only gained momentum, and Newt clung to it with all his might. Clung to Hermann.

When the programme had been officially shut down, his top three greatest fears had been that a) he’d be kept from continuing his work and helping to save the world in time, b) he’d die alone in a shelter somewhere on the globe feeling useless and betrayed, and c) that he and Hermann might get separated before the end.

And now, Hermann was completely wrecking the entire concept of the handshake, and all Newt could think about was that he was offering himself, offering himself to Newt as a partner in a venture that could kill them both as easily as the apocalypse could. As stupid as it was, Newt felt the relief settle into the marrow of his bones at the thought that, if they died, they’d be together (unless he kicked the bucket due to the added stress of his previous solo encounter with the Drift, but he tossed that thought out of his right ear and banged the door shut in its ugly face), and wasn’t _that_ ridiculous.

_And you’re close enough to lose_  
 _Close to the point, where you know that your mind, it can not choose_  
 _Close enough to lose_  
 _Close enough to lose your heart_

The Drift left them both reeling, left Hermann throwing up into a handy toilet bowl, left Newt buzzing and brimming with things he’d never thought he’d know. Really _know_ , know that beautiful mind as surely as his own, feel as secure in it as in his embrace. A rushing wave of affection crashed over his head as he watched Hermann right himself, remembering... remembering so many things, remembering being wrapped up in those arms and _having_ those arms, holding on for dear life. He absently registered Hermann’s posture stiffening, too focused on that particular scene in his mind. He was able to look at it from two perspectives now, transcending empathy and imagination, he didn’t _need_ to imagine anymore now; and not just that incident, but so many others. Hermann’s thoughts were right there, swirling like mercury in water, Newt could see what he’d been thinking when admonishing Newt for the third tattoo, for the fourth —

When Hermann finally got Newt’s attention by shouting his name at the top of his lungs — his first name, Newt noted with a thrill — they didn’t need words to know that they both knew what they had to do.

It took them over a week and quite a few words to figure out that their Drift hadn’t quite been what the Drift usually was.

_Now I'm thinking, maybe I was stoned_  
 _I felt my feet lift off the ground_  
 _And my heart was screaming_  
 _And my bones_  
 _‘I need you closer’_

If anyone had expected them to magically stop arguing, they’d have been in for a surprise at the amount of insults hurled about while they were busy packing up the lab equipment and their research. They’d have also been surprised at the way Newt suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Hermann with his mouth gaping open. Hermann irritably snapped, “What?!” and Newt promptly dropped the cardboard box full of notes he’d been carrying.

“What?” Hermann asked again more quietly, stepping closer to Newt. “What is it? Have you gone mute all of a sudden? Is it an after-effect of the Drift? A rather pleasant one, might I add.” Seeing no blood trickling out of Newt’s nose, Hermann came yet closer, squinting at the other man’s left eye.

Normally, Newt would have squawked at the cynical quip, but the thing was... he knew Hermann didn’t mean it. He knew that concern was making its way to the forefront of Hermann’s mind, he knew that he was planning on calling emergency services if Newt didn’t say anything or at least bloody _move_ within a minute. He knew. He’d known what Hermann was going to say to him just a minute ago _before he’d actually said it_.

“Did you feel that?” he finally spoke and he swore that he felt Hermann’s tense shoulders relax a fraction as if they were his own. An instant later, though, the tension was back and Hermann’s fleetingly open expression closed off again.

“Feel what?” He moved to turn away to go back to his significantly tidier workspace, but Newt’s hand shot out to grasp his wrist. Hermann didn’t flinch. Hermann always flinched when someone touched him — unless he could see it coming.

“You know what I mean,” Newt half-asked, half-observed, tightening his hold and rubbing his thumb once, twice, over Hermann’s arm in a grounding touch, _he knew that this kind of thing grounded Hermann_. “You can feel it, too, you felt it at the site, immediately after the Drift! You — oh.”

 _Oh_. For all that Newt was a genius, he was incredibly dense.

He hadn’t thought when Hermann had honest to God smiled at him after the war clock was deactivated, hadn’t _thought_ when Hermann had shuffled closer and pressed into his side, hadn’t thought when he’d grinned back and slung his arm around Hermann’s shoulder as if he’d done that a hundred times before. He hadn’t thought when he’d realised that they still argued, but that the comfort they’d both drawn from it was apparent now, it was the _point_ , not merely a side effect.

He hadn’t considered that all those times in the past when he’d been afraid of losing Hermann as his lab partner had been right there, right slap-bang in the middle of his mind for Hermann to see and to take indignant offence at.

Except he hadn’t, he hadn’t said a word. And Newt had seen all of that _stuff_ in Hermann’s memories, all those fights and shouting matches, those desperate seconds ticking away as Newton lay on the floor, caught in a seizure and helpless; and now that he focused, truly _looked_ , he could see Hermann’s explosive fury during their conversation with Pentecost for what it was. Fear. Fear and anger and abandonment channelling themselves into an argument about who was right and who was wrong, because that was what worked, had worked for so long. Until they’d Drifted and everything had changed by staying in its exact, rightful place.

And Hermann hadn’t said a word.

_Closer, closer_  
 _You met me when the sun was down_  
 _And the bar was closed_  
 _We both have had no sleep_  
 _My face beneath the street lamp_  
 _it reveals what it is lonely people seek_  
 _‘Closer, closer,_  
 _‘Closer, closer’_

“Why?” He knew that Hermann knew what he meant, so many things at once, all racing through his head. Why did we end up like this? Why are we still connected? _Why didn’t you say anything?_

Hermann took a deep breath, two. “I don’t know and, I don’t know. I didn’t... I knew what would happen in the Drift, with us, that we’d see each other for who we were, and I... I was curious, you know that now. I also dreaded what I would find, you know that, too. I expected so many things, Newt, but not that. I didn’t know how —”

“You should have said something,” Newt interrupted him, brushing his thumb over Hermann’s skin without stopping now.

“It’s only been a week, I didn’t know if —”

“No. Before that. Long before that,” Newt breathed, and Hermann’s irritation at being interrupted again flitted right out of his mind when Newt leaned forward and kissed him. His hands moved to gently turn Hermann so they properly faced each other and then his arms went around his waist, pulling him closer. Leaning into Newt, Hermann brought up his right arm to hook it around Newt’s neck, kissing him back with something so close to adoration that Newt’s internal organs did a coordinated somersault.

_That you’re close enough to lose_  
 _Close to the point, where you know that your mind, it can not choose_  
 _Close enough to lose_  
 _Close enough to lose your heart._

They stood like that, kissing first chastely and then increasing desperately, clutching at each other’s clothing and hair, with absolutely no intention of ever, ever letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted on ff.net.


End file.
